While thousands of Sahrawi families continue to survive under extremely precarious conditions within the Tindouf camps, a series of international financial scandals once again highlights the opaque, systemic, and predatory management of the Polisario Front leadership. Between personal enrichment, the diversion of international humanitarian aid, and recent large-scale Ponzi schemes, the rift between the camp population and its self-proclaimed leaders now appears irreversible.
This structural decay comes to light at a pivotal moment in the region's history: the Congress of Deputies in Spain has just approved a landmark bill aimed at granting Spanish nationality to tens of thousands of Sahrawis born under the former colonial administration as well as their descendants. This bill, which opens the path to European citizenship for a large portion of the population, starkly underscores the contrast between the Sahrawi grassroots' aspirations for dignity and the mafia-like drift of a desperate nomenklatura, denounced from all sides for its predatory practices.
Humanitarian Aid as a Political Rent: The Case of Fatima Mahfoud in Italy
For several years, reports from international institutions—chief among them the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF)—have denounced the methodical siphoning off of food, medicine, and logistical supplies intended for refugees. Europe and international associative networks finance a wave of solidarity that, in reality, fuels a thriving black market managed by the movement's security apparatus and its overseas representations.
In Italy, the protest has now reached the public square. Dissident voices and Sahrawi activists have stepped up to criticise the actions of Fatima Mahfoud, the Polisario’s official representative in the Peninsula. Far from her official role as a humanitarian diplomat, her management is increasingly challenged by the grassroots.
Independent information platforms, reflecting revelations reported by the Mediterranews portal, echo complaints from activists denouncing a complete lack of transparency. The latter accuse the representative of exploiting the distress of children and medical assistance projects in Italy to capture financial flows beyond any independent oversight, serving more to maintain the lifestyle of the movement's cadres than to relieve the hardship in the camps.
Independent information platforms, reflecting revelations reported by the Mediterranews portal, echo complaints from activists denouncing a complete lack of transparency. The latter accuse the representative of exploiting the distress of children and medical assistance projects in Italy to capture financial flows beyond any independent oversight, serving more to maintain the lifestyle of the movement's cadres than to relieve the hardship in the camps.
The "Infravest" Affair: The Mass Ponzi Scheme Stripping the Tindouf Camps
In addition to this structural diversion of international aid, an unprecedented internal crisis has plunged the local population into total dismay. In September 2026, the Tindouf camps (particularly in Rabouni and the Chahid El Hafed camp) were shaken by the anger of hundreds of residents, merchants, and local cooperatives. All are demanding the return of their funds—estimated at approximately 886 billion Algerian dinars, or around 6.6 million US dollars—following the collapse of the company "Infravest for Contracting and Investment".
Operating freely in the camps since 2022 under the leadership of Sallamou Abba Ali—who has since fled to an unknown destination with the funds—Infravest built a false sense of respectability through cultural sponsorship and fake construction projects. In doing so, it established a massive Ponzi scheme, swallowing up the meagre savings of thousands of vulnerable Sahrawi families.
This massive fraud case, involving millions of Algerian dinars and Mauritanian ouguiyas, is no minor news story. The total impunity Infravest enjoyed for years while collecting funds from residents inside a closed military zone demonstrates, at best, passive complicity, and at worst, the active participation of high-ranking dignitaries within the Polisario apparatus. Faced with the bankruptcy of this system, anger is brewing, and demonstrations by defrauded victims are heavily controlled by the movement's military force, which is panicked by the idea that this latest scandal will permanently tarnish its international image.
An Urgent Call for International Accountability
Faced with this alarming situation, the international community, the European Union, and donor countries can no longer turn a blind eye. Funding aid for the Tindouf camps without imposing a strict population census and an independent audit of distribution channels amounts to complicity in a two-tier system of predation that combines the theft of international aid with the financial exploitation of refugees.
At the very moment Spain prepares to offer a prospect of legal and civic emancipation to thousands of Sahrawis, it is urgent that European parliaments—and Italian authorities in particular—demand accountability regarding the use of public and associative funds. Polisario Front leaders must be brought to international justice for their actions, while the protection and dignity of the captives in Tindouf must imperatively be placed under the direct control of United Nations agencies.